Ben Carson has finally lost his cool. Throughout the course of his presidential campaign thus far, Carson has been known to be rather level-headed, at least as far as it relates to evoking emotions compared to others on the campaign trail, such as Donald Trump. Every time he speaks, his tone has been classified as “boring” or “mediocre.” That’s probably because no one has hit a nerve yet.

In light of the recent allegations that Carson lied about getting a full scholarship to West Point, things got uncomfortable enough to set him off during a news conference with reporters on Friday. This isn’t the same Ben Carson you’ve heard before. He lashed out at reporters in a big way. It definitely was NOT presidential.

For one, he tried to reframe the issue and went off on a crazy rant about President Obama:

“I do not remember this level of scrutiny for President Barack Obama, when he was running. In fact, I remember just the opposite. I remember people just…’oh we won’t talk about that. We wont really talk about that relationship..well, Frank Marshall Davis…oh, we won’t talk about that….Bernadine Dohrn…Bill Ayers….oh, yeah he didn’t really know him.’ All the things that Jeramie Wright was saying….’ohhh not a big problem. He goes to occidential college doesn’t do all that well and somehow goes to columbia university. Well…..his records are sealed.’ Why are his records sealed? Why are you not interested in why his records are sealed?”

He may not “remember” Obama getting great heat on all these issues, but the fact remains that President Obama has gone through more scrutiny than Ben Carson ever has. With that said, Carson’s “memory” of things hasn’t been the best, truth be told. While the media might scrutinize and question him on this, that’s their job. That’s how every presidential candidate is treated.

If any candidate needs to be whining about media portrayal and treatment, it’s Hillary Clinton and the coverage of this supposed email “scandal.” That hasn’t proved very fruitful for them. She did an entire day’s worth of testimony on Capitol Hill, completely relaxed, even though the whole thing was nothing but a partisan witch hunt.

If anything, Ben Carson needs to take a chapter out of President Obama’s book. Shortly after he became president, Obama was interviewed and went on record saying how he expects people to try and come after him:

“I think it’s fair to say that I don’t always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that’s how democracy works. We’re not supposed to all be in lock step here.”

Real presidents know how to keep calm under pressure. Ben Carson may have seemed to be level-headed thus far, but he hasn’t been under any real pressure yet. If he wants to take the next step, he’s going to have to learn how to keep his cool under intense scrutiny.

To most American voters (especially the younger ones), Jeb Bush’s new sloganwill mostly just sound uninspired, and slightly reminiscent of Bob the Builder. But for pretty much anyone even mildly aware of British popular culture, the words “Jeb Can Fix It,” soon to be plastered on every surface his dying campaign can touch, will bring to mind just one thing: Jimmy Savile, one of the most prolific child abusers in the history of entertainment.

For unfamiliar Yanks, Savile was one of Great Britain’s most beloved and popular entertainers during his lifetime, covering the gamut from radio to television to charity work and everything in between. He was even knighted by the Queen in 1990. But after Savile died in 2011, what had long been sporadic and stifled allegations of sexual abuse began to blow up. And up and up and up.

By November of 2012, it was revealed that 450 alleged victims had come forward in the mere ten weeks since the police launched an investigation into Savile’s behavior. According to a BBC report from the time, of the hundreds of alleged victims, 82% were female and 80% were “children or young people.”

In 2014, a new report from the Health Secretary revealed that Savile also may have sexually abused patients at over 40 different hospitals he had visited under the auspice of “charity work.” With the Daily Mail writing that “Savile is thought to have abused patients aged from just five to 75.”

And before all that came to light, Jimmy Savile had a wildly popular children’s show called Jim’ll Fix It.

The premise of the show was that children would write to beloved entertainer and secret sexual predator Jimmy Savile with wishes, which he would fulfill. The grateful children would then receive medals inscribed with the words “Jim Fixed It For Me.”

The premise of the show was that children would write to beloved entertainer and secret sexual predator Jimmy Savile with wishes, which he would fulfill. The grateful children would then receive medals inscribed with the words “Jim Fixed It For Me.”

That slogan is now inexorably linked, in the British popular imagination, to a depraved and vile criminal, whose unconscionable acts were covered up by powerful people for decades. And also, now, to Jeb Bush.

Why no one in Jeb Bush’s still somewhat well-staffed campaign thought this slogan might be a bad idea is unclear. We’ve reached out to Jeb!’s camp for comment, and will update when and if we hear back.

In the meantime, though, we’ve asked a few Brits what they thought of Jeb’s nifty new slogan. From Ed Zitron, British PR Guy:

In England [Jimmy Savile] has a cancerous, horrifying reputation built on a history of “looking after” and “supporting kids” that then turned into a really, really disgusting revelation of sneaking into hospitals.

It’s not a good look to adopt that phrase. Ever. It is bad. It is a bad idea.

It is so perfectly Jeb Bush to pick something reminiscent of a horrible pedophile in trying to revitalize his campaign. It’s not exactly offensive, but being reminded of “Jim’ll Fix It” these days is definitely unpleasant.

It really is hard to convey just how disturbing “Jim’ll Fix It” is now. The show was way before my time, but I knew about it because it was a big cultural reference point. And now it just has such horrifying connotations. Very similar to the Cosby thing.

If Jeb is looking for things to fix, this seems like a good place to start.

Latinos will screw them back harder during the upcoming Presidential Election. Wait and see

As the only female candidate on the debate stage, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said women voters shouldn’t assume that just because Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton is a woman that she has their interests at heart.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for Mrs. Clinton to talk about being the first woman president, when every single policy she espouses and every single policy of President Obama has been demonstratively bad for women,” Fiorina said. “Ninety-two percent of the jobs lost during Barack Obama’s first term belonged to women.”

Her 92-percent claim dates back to the 2012 presidential race when it was used by the Republican National Committee and GOP nominee Mitt Romney. At the time, March 2012, the claim had some numerical validity but was also cherry-picked and flawed. We rated it Mostly False.

We reached out to the Fiorina campaign and did not hear back, so we’re not sure if she based her statement on the same data as Romney’s campaign used.

But here’s what we found back in April 2012: Between January 2009 and March 2012, the total drop in employment was, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 740,000. In the same period, employment for women fell by 683,000.

Do the division and you get 92.3 percent.

A big problem with the claim in 2012 was that it cherry-picked the starting date for assessing Obama’s jobs track record. The recession began in December 2007, and he didn’t take office until January 2009, when it was nearly over. It’s difficult to blame any president for the economic situation he inherited.

The bigger problem with Fiorina making the same statement today is that Obama’s first term continued for another 10 months. During that time, the women job numbers did a U-turn and became a net gain.

The government data show an increase of 416,000 working women between January 2009 and January 2013. Total employment also rose by 1.3 million. So more women actually were working at the end of Obama’s first term compared with the day he first took office.

We used the January 2009 to January 2013 timeframe to be consistent with the original Republican framing of the critique of Obama’s economic policies.

Our ruling

Fiorina said 92 percent of the jobs lost during Obama’s first term belonged to women. By January 2013, the jobs numbers don’t back it up at all. The number of women with jobs increased by 416,000 during Obama’s first term.

By electing any of the GOP Presidential candidates, America not only will support their current policies, but will bring us back to the 1950s and its oppressive policies. I refuse to stand for an America full of bigotry.

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LABProLib stands for Latino and Black ProgressiveLiberalism! We are not a news website. Our website catalogs online articles, events, photos, cartoons, selected powerful satire stories, and more that speaks to people of color and our allies. Most of the articles are complemented with photographs and graphs that has been appropriated into memes.